Have you ever heard someone say, “It’s my life, I’ll live it the way I want to. A person has to die sometime”? Younger and less experienced people sometimes talk that way. There is no doubt that ultimately we each have the choice of how we will live our life. And while it is true that we will die sometime, there is a problem with the part that says, “It’s my life.”

Let me explain where I am coming from. I might as well tell you here at the outset that I take rat poison (Coumidin) every day of my life. The generic name is Warfarin, and it is the same poison used to kill rodents. It kills by inhibiting the blood’s ability to clot.

Scene One: I am in college, and the doc doing the student physicals remarks offhandedly that I have an irregular pulse beat. He doesn’t seem concerned; and the truth is, I forget all about.

Scene Two: Years later our entire family undergoes physical examinations before going overseas for mission service. This doctor confirms that I have Atrial Fibrillation. But he passes me on the physical, and I don’t worry about it because I feel no symptoms.

Scene Three: The family is back stateside; and during a friendly visit with my college roommate who is an internist, he does a work-up on me and tells me I really ought to take a beta-blocker to suppress the spurious heart beats.

Scene Four: I see a cardiologist, who informs me I have a 1% change a year of having a stroke, since my atria were not empting as they should. A 1% chance a year isn’t much; but it suddenly occurs to me that if I had a stroke it wouldn’t be just my life that would be affected, it would also be my wife’s. She would be the one who would have to call 9-1-1 and later push me around in a wheel chair, bathe me, feed me, and all the rest. So I make the decision that from now on I would take the “rat poison.”

The point is, my life doesn’t belong to just me, it belongs to my family and ultimately to the Great Physician who is my maker. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Corinthians 6:20.

It’s easy to just go with the flow as far as our health habits are concerned. And the contemporary culture is little help. TV and radio commercials try to seduce us into buying fattening desserts, while the program that follows might be an interview with a health expert on the importance of maintaining proper body weight! Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense.

I do a lot of flying, and it occurs to me that a pilot’s choice is not how he’s going to fly the plane, rather if he’s going to fly the plane. You can't fly a plane just any old way. There are laws of aerodynamics, and they are unforgiving. As the old saying goes, there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.

The principles that govern health are just as sure as the laws of aerodynamics. But since it sometimes takes longer to crash our health, we can easily deceive ourselves. A person could be breaking every health rule in the book, and the chickens might not come home to roost for 20 or 30 years. But when the other shoe drops, it drops hard. And not only one person might go down in the crash but the quality of life of the entire family would be affected as well.

It’s true that the mortality rate for this race is 100%. Yet we owe it to each other while we can to do all in our power to reduce the risk factors. That’s why I take Warfarin. It’s a matter of prevention.

One day my wife and I were in a pharmacy, and she said to me, “I think I’ll get some chewing gum.” I asked her if she planned on buying the sugarless variety, and she admitted that she hadn’t planned on it.

“You had better,” I replied, “because your teeth belong to me!”

No man is an island unto himself. What we do and what happens to us affects a lot of other people, and usually they are members of our families. If the Great Physician were here today, He would give us good counsel when it comes to healthful living. He would say, “Whether, therefore, you eat or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31. It might not be a bad idea to tape that verse to the refrigerator door!